Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Gay marriage protesters rant

Because of the recent milestone for gay rights in California, I figured I'd add my own two cents again. With gratuitous amounts of bolding and italicizing, because some people seem to be having trouble with certain concepts.

Regarding the ruling of same-sex marriage:

1. Anti-homosexuality is largely a product of religion; taking out the "Go~od! Adam and Steve are being fags again when you said that was a sin!" is there really a secular basis for gay bashing and hate crimes? It's not like so many people are gay that the human race is in danger of extinction. On a purely intellectual level, homosexuality could be a species survival mechanism; the planet is overpopulated, and gay couples wouldn't contribute nearly as many new babies (and that's human babies, because there is a lot of evidence negating the fact that homosexuals have demon babies) to the population. Instead of getting pregnant whenever the condom or rhythm method malfunctioned, lesbians have to be take determined measures to fertilize an egg. And gay men have the whole ordeal of finding a surrogate mother. So that means fewer babies born and more adoptions of orphaned or disadvantaged children- and how could that not be a good thing?

2. Anti-homosexuality feelings that are not religion-based are a personal preference. If you feel squeamish about members of the same sex being attracted to you, then that's your problem. If you see two guys laughing as they pretend to feel up cucumbers in the produce department at your local grocery store, you're entitled to your homophobic shudders of disgust. But just turn away. Live and let live. It's your emotional baggage that's intensifying the situation.

3. Taking my first argument of homophobia being a product of religion, politicians and judges seem to be having trouble with the whole "separation of church and state" thing. C'mon, folks, it's right there in the U.S. Constitution! It's the First Amendment, so even if you stopped reading it halfway through you should have picked up on that fact. Or maybe you were in a hurry to skip ahead to that "OMG GUNZ!!1" part.

4. Under secular American doctrine, All Men are Equal. (Additionally, in practice that now includes human entities outside of the purely male sex.) Therefore, it is illegal to withhold basic rights from specific demographic groups. Therefore, the institution of marriage must be inclusive for all American humans or none. (And don't give me that crap about "If gays can be married, then what's stopping someone from marrying his dog?" That's a slippery slope/continuum fallacy. Besides, the definition of the word man (while it includes women and children and homo- and intersexuals) is not about to be so inclusive as to permit Fluffy to be legally considered a human.

Regarding the protesters of gay marriage:

Don't quote the Scripture at me; your Leviticus 20:13 argument isn't going to work. The vast majority (and I mean 99.999%) of you abomination-extolling hypocrites are hypocrites. If you accept the premise that "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman" (Leviticus 18:22) is true, then you must accept that "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard" (Leviticus 19:27) is true, as is "and the swine... is unclean to you" (Leviticus 11:7), "Do not wear material woven of two kinds of material" (Leviticus 19:19) and "Whatever in the water does not have fins or scales; that shall be an abomination to you." (Leviticus 11:12). (Additional info: Proof that fundamentalists selectively quote the Bible and Eleventh Avenue: The Bible and Homosexuality)